


Lost Soldiers

by InSchadenfreude



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-13 22:14:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2167119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InSchadenfreude/pseuds/InSchadenfreude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years can take a toll on one's sanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There is a dark place in everyone's mind that can’t be repressed. 

Sometimes that darkness comes to hold us ways we can’t fathom. 

In others it hides within the mind like festering hordes of pestilence, trapped only by the weight of our own skulls.

We look at each other and see the only light we frantically climb for, unaware of the cold ideas that blister under our skin as we look upon these lost people attempting to find peace.

There is no solitude. 

Not in our memories.

Our thoughts will drive us to hell

And pull apart each fragment of reality

Until we are twisting in skin and bone,

Unrecognising of our own faces,

Unseeing of our own sins...

 

It had only been a week since the treaty came through and since the silence of absent war we found ourselves restless each day. We all knew this would happen eventually, but after having each day, for the past 6 ½ years, filled to the brink with unforgiving battles everyone walked about aimlessly, drinking till the sun shone through the cracks outside. I sat idly, half crouched, back against the wall, knowing I had faired no better. The lukewarm bottle resting in my palm as I gripped the bones of my arms and skull, lost within the contagious thoughts of my own consciousness. Who knew we would all get addicted to this raging lifestyle, going out each day to blow each others heads in two. I had seen eyes pushed through their sockets as the bone cracked and collapsed inwards, pouring out the mix of fat and muscle as their skin ripped from my hands. This place gave you that thrilling power to take their life, cutting your hands on their bones as you searched for their credits...   
Watching the body parts tear from their sockets as the bullets came through was so satisfying, so intense, so indulging, and I’m sure the others felt it too.   
You spend everyday trapped within that, and then, you don’t want to leave. It becomes you, as much as breathing or feeling your heart beat; especially as it's being pumped full of adrenaline. 

 

I looked through my clutching fingers to see Demo, who sat hunched beside me on an old dusty crate. It had been emptied many years ago, but the company boxes were never moved post unpacking. Their job now, was to litter the halls and the buildings, even outside, as they bleached from sunlight and rotted in the mirrored rain.   
His hand held out another tinted bottle near my shoulder, that I took hastily and looked down into as the swing of my left hand emptied the rest of my last.  
“Thanks...” I said untoned, rubbing desperately into my forehead as I tried to lose myself in the intoxication and deathly quiet air.   
“You look like you need it, lass” he jested, trying to uplift the mood even by the smallest increment, but he knew, that even in himself he cannot change the way he feels right now, stuck spinning inside this desolate moment.

I released my skull from my digging fingertips as I turned my head to him, peering up over my shoulder at his crushed stare as it also looked down into the friend of sloshing liquid in his hands, glazed brown by the glass that trapped it.   
“we both do” My words entertained him slightly as a pitiful laugh moved from my chest. 

 

"... Do you suppose they’ll be watching?” I ask sighing, looking blankly at the floor.   
Out the corner of my eye I see him turn to me, half knowing his face would be a faint mix of confusion and melancholia.   
His rough exhale brushed over my shoulder, interrupted as he took another swig of his bottle, “Mate… I don’t think they'll be doing anything else…”   
My sight slowly wandered back to the details of the cracking beige floor.  
“Yeah…”   
An air of silence fell us as we drank with our heads held low, filled with a pressuring anguish that made us both think about how the others faired.   
“The doctor’s taken it the worst.” my words lingered as he thought about it.  
“aye.. must’a been ‘is way ta' avoid whatever’s stuck inside ‘is head.”  
My brows furrowed as I tried to imagine what could be so bad that he’d use violence to avoid the thoughts. Then I remembered myself and why I’d joined in the first place...  
Everyone had something to hide, something that made them efficient at what they do, and nobody questioned it; that’s why we were so good as a team.

Their faces had passed us briefly every now and then, each member of the group exhibiting their own share of suppressed hostility. Foremost, we saw scout as he circled the whole base, moving faster each time as he expelled the pent up energy that overflowed from his muscles each morning, but now he had nothing to do with it: stuck like a fish out of water with the same edgy expression hooked on his face as the repetition went on,   
and on,   
and on. 

Each time he passed we nodded to him, and each time we did he nodded back in that same echoing silence. Turning the corner with increasing speed, we’d hear his rapid footsteps trail off, and then, quicker than he left, he’d come running down the wood panelled hall to the doorway beside us only a few minutes later.  
After a while he disappeared, 'figured he’d gone to get one of the depleting soda cans.   
With the treaty passed there was no more need for the stuff, so the shipments were discontinued, much to Scout’s dismay.   
It had become daily routine, much like the fighting, and now the withdrawal left him twitchy, the same as all of us. 

Lifestyle is a drug like air is to lungs. We can’t stop breathing no matter how hard we try.  
We always end up gasping for air in the end.

My eyes scoured up the sides of the creaking hallway and across the broken dirt packed floor, expecting Scout to turn up momentarily as he always did,   
but I kept staring at nothing.   
I looked up to Demo to see if his expression bore anything from it, but he’d already fallen into a deep sleep, escaping the world for as long as I left him.   
It was difficult for any of us to fall asleep, and I often found myself accompanied at 5am by others wandering the halls with questioning purpose; lingering until the sun rose on our faces and another fruitless day started again. So I left him in solitary peace.  
Minimal sound was made as I shuffled and adjusted myself, taking another gulp of my drink as I thought of Scout downing a can of overloaded sugar.   
Where was he? Where was anyone? I felt alone in this small corner of the base, listening to the one sound of Demo snoring;  
I couldn’t hear any other sounds of life around me.   
No talking. No whispers. No quiet footsteps. I thought even the sounds from outside might give a mild ambience, but I was left in an imposing vacuum, void from any life other than my own and his.

My palm pushed heavily against the crusted ground as I stretched upwards and placed my half-finished drink lightly in the crate beside him.   
Both hands then returned to rub my face of any tension that built from my constant frowning; swinging back to my sides as I brushed myself off and stiffly moved my legs out the dirty doorway onto the cold laminated floor of the corridor beyond.   
As my feet slowly traced along Scout’s running path I kept feeling the odd atmosphere of silence that my consciousness noticed earlier, feeling it begin to cause paranoia as to something more.  
While the team usually grouped up to wallow in their absent states of mind, or converse about the treaty and how it effected them, it wasn’t too unlikely that everyone had gone to do their own separate things.  
I passed Engie’s room, glancing as I saw him indulged in some sketches on his desk, but it was too dark to see if he was drawing or just reading them. I thought to myself, “he’s probably fallen asleep on them” and laughed sorrowfully at the concept of unneeded schematics and machinery.   
The situation hit everyone hard, but I was only now thinking about the effects on us individually.

Coming closer to the next room, the hallways looked as though they were getting darker, forming an impending feeling that would have consumed me if I wasn’t looking out for everyone else. However, as I thought about it I began to lose myself in a moment of indulgence, almost crashing to the floor as I felt my foot slip out from beneath me. 

A familiar smell overwhelmed my nostrils as I looked down to see a huge coagulating pool of blood resting underneath my toes. 

Somebody was dead.

...

This had to have broken the treaty! 

The sudden thought filled me with excitement and understanding as I laughed and looked at the decapitated body of the missing Scout. “So that’s where you went to” a chuckle parted my lips, “should’ve been quicker”   
My lips curved to an iridescent smile as I took a step closer and leant down to unclasp his fingers from the iconic baseball bat he held. There was no way I had enough time to get my own weapons if the enemy was still close, so this would definitely do as a strong compromise.  
Striding back into the barren hallway, wide grin affixed on my face, I shouted to the air vents, “the enemy has broken the treaty!”.

 

 

 

No reply.

 

A confused glare took the smile from my cheeks as I looked up and down the way and spoke bemused, “anyone?”. I frowned at the absence of joy, turning back the way to return to Engie, then rushed as a possible thought crossed my mind.

Confirmed.

His body was just a few degrees warmer than scouts, still in the position he’s been in prior to death. I tried to pull him back, but was met with some resistance before his head snapped back and his throat poured out bursts of blood. He was alive. His hands clawed at the wound that made his muscles spasm and lungs choking for air, the ligaments holding his head upright now held nothing as he slowly fell out of the chair and gripped frantically to my feet, pushing me away as he tried to speak. There was no way I was leaving him to die, not when the infirmary was so close.   
My hands griped tightly around his neck, trying to use an old dusty celotape roll to hold the wound open on both sides and keep the blood from filing his lungs; as i placed my hands over it to seal it and let him breathe his hands tried to pry mine away again. “Medic!” I yelled in my unsuccessful improvise, watching him lose consciences in front of me as his body continued to convulse and gasp for air.

 

 

 

 

“MEDIC!”

My eyes shot open as he laughed maliciously from under the desk, bloody saw in hand as his fingernails dug into the floor and pulled himself towards me. In one short moment the doctor pushed off, sprinting forward with his sadistic intentions aimed on my frightened eyes.  
My hands unclasped from Engie and rapidly flung my body against the doorframe, using it to swing around into the hallway as my hands gripped firmly and displaced me from one side of the wall to the other. I missed his saw by a hairline as it coursed into the wall beside me; the tinted metal reflected his maddened eyes straight into my mine, peering into every corner of my panicked mind.   
My lungs hailed for Demo as I traversed the corner, running to where I had been in those quiet hours before. I gasped when I felt my feet slipping as they wiped off the blood I had knelt in moments prior. If I fell now, God knows what he would do to me. The man I had respected and admired for so long now craved my end or at least now had the lack of restraint to do so.

War holds deep scars that we can’t see,  
and now I was forced into the middle of one, sitting up close and personal, as I ran away from his bloodthirsty eyes.

“Come here, mien Liebling!” His growled voiced crushed through the air between us, echoing down the halls in great thunder as the sound of our footsteps clashed with sharp hits against the floor. I couldn’t help but peer over my shoulder at the vivid eyes of my pursuer, staring wild eyed through his broken spectacles that were kept securely in place by the intense and insane grimace that twisted his features.  
In the dark I could only just see the copious blood staining his waistcoat as i tried to focus on him, but the only thing I looked for was the mad glimmer of the bone saw, reflecting the mild light on every surface, even under the red tint of blood. I could see his arm raising, holding the instrument up high, ready to strike if i came in to distance.

The doorway came into sight, littered with sticky bombs. A slight air of relief came to me as I lept past them and caught my hands on the crate I had been sitting beside before; my body twisted towards the sight of Demo, standing at the other end of the corridor with button in hand. “NOW” the words screamed from my lungs as I ran towards him, but were unheeded as his sight looked past me perplexed at my situation. 

 

That split moment cost his life.

Once again I saw eyes reflected in that shining bone saw as it soared past my shoulder and struck Demo through his brow to his nape, slicing his head almost clean in two. The blood poured over his eyes, blinding him in the few seconds it took for his body to collapse and lose all of reality. 

In an instant my lungs released a cry of anger through my airways, watching the body of my friend spasm and die. 

My scream was only silenced by a sharp pain that caught my breath and made me sick to the bone.

And then irrefutable darkness. 

 

The recesses of guilt, anger and sadness built up again.

Eager to be released in the next cycle of violence.


	2. Chapter 2

My consciousness slowly enveloped me, picking me apart in each detail as I pushed against my coming reality.   
The feel of cold metal pinched against my skin and brought me falling into an enveloping confusion that relived the last moments that caught my memory...  
The cautious sound of heavy breathing abruptly gripped the edge of my hearing, clutching every thought and feeling as it sent shivers down my neck. I could hear Medic’s raspy chuckles, and felt them echoing a few feet away from me. Something had taken his indulgence, and I feared to open my eyes to see it before I had figured out the extent of my own situation...   
I clenched my fingertips tight in my palms, but could barely move my hands as I tried to move and felt hard leather tightening around my wrists. With each struggle, more panic took over me; my hands touched along the material as quietly as possible, careful not to alert Medic to my awakening as I tried to figure out how it held me so forcefully to the cold panel behind me...  
Feeling to each side, I rested my hands against a belt that pinned my waist but the buckle was either underneath me or in the centre...   
Medic had been thorough to make sure I could barely move and couldn't reach... but that didn’t stop me from trying. As I came upon the edge of the metal, the sharp lip almost cut my skin, forcing me to come to the conclusion that I rested upon one of the blood crusted medical tables I’d seen so many times before, always in such an innocent light...   
I held myself in paralysed caution as my eyes opened blindly into the strong contrast of light and dark. My body was spotlighted, laid down in a showcase like a blank canvas, strapped to the table by my forehead, legs, wrists and hips akin to one of the doctor's morbid specimens.   
The situation would have made me squirm if I were none the wiser to Medic’s looming presence.   
My eyes crossed my chest, looking to the side for where I’d heard him just moments before, but I was shocked as found a void of his figure: an absence of life in the darkness that surrounded me...

 

My eyesight recoiled as opposite me, a pool of vivid light fixed on soldier’s flayed body. His organs shone red in it’s vibrancy, lying extracted and hauled over his legs and arms in a mad-mans replication of art. It was repulsive and potent in my eyes, but I could barely look away with my head strapped in place. My eyelids could close, but I fought against it to find the hidden culprit of the monstrosity...

 

I heard his breath behind me moving from ear to ear as he got closer and placed his hand around the metal lip of the table, beside my shoulder. He pulled himself round with a table of dirty instruments, and the immense look of insanity repeated in each eye. “mien favorit…” he cooed, gravelly in his accent as he grinned towards me. “vhat do you think?” his stained hand gestured towards the abomination in front of me as he moved closer and a husky laugh coursed from his lungs. A glimmer caught my eye in the light as he twisted his hand to outline his creation, “Die inbegriff aus schönheit, is it not?” Fear played in my eyes as I desperately tried to see what he held, but i wished i hadn’t. His hand came back into the light with a tinted scalpel, aimed at my neck as an agitated look came upon his face. “beanworten mir…” I looked to him shaky and clueless, "Answer me!” he snapped, denting the metal beside my head as his fist pelted down.   
“Yes!” My heart raced against my lungs, taking my breath further and further from my attempts to calm.   
His face began to relax back to his normal stern look, and that scared me the most. I had seen this expression every day but now I knew what lay behind it… Every time I had greeted him, there had been something much darker lurking around under his roughened skin... Looking for an opportunity to lay me out like that.... horror opposite...  
No matter how much I struggled I had to accept my fate... The only thing I couldn’t control now, was my reaction to pain…   
“Yes, doctor…”   
My enforced answer humoured him mildly, bringing a low enjoyment to his features as he smiled, but it didn’t change in his eyes... That dark look stayed there, affixed like stone as he glared at me; I could see his sight working through each procedure in his mind, moving over me and pinpointing where he would do the most damage and the least…  
“vhy do you run from perfektion…” he questioned, moving the scalpel lightly over my neck, “Do you not want to be fehlerlos?” his demeanour switched rapidly from confusion to infuriation, “or do you zhink you already are?…” I wouldn’t test him, I gathered it would only lead to more pain… More suffering before my reality had gone completely from my mind…   
“No, doctor…” My reluctance to say anything made him agitated but repeating his title again seemed to counteract his reaction… I took it to heart… If there was a soft spot in there, it reacted to this, and I clambered at it… but trapped within the demented darkness of his mind I still knew I barely had the power to stop my fate… not unless I managed to take the shining blade he kept twisting over my skin…  
I could feel it's sharp edge teasing against my collarbone as he entertained his thoughts, dragging it heavier and heavier in an overbearing lust for my pain, but the feeling suddenly stopped as he came back from his entranced state and loomed over me… Blocking the blinding spotlight from my face...  
As my sight adjusted I looked quickly up to see his eyes fixed to my own, moving closer and closer as his face shortened the gap from mine; his breath pulsed through my air, almost choking my airways as he stopped millimeters from my skin and held me in silence for a gripping long moment…   
I couldn’t stop my eyes from closing, tensed in fear for what he would do…

His skin, brushed against mine, causing every part of my body to clench against the restraints…   
His fingers wrapped around my throat…   
Scalpel poised against my chest…  
“Open your eyes…” he whispered softly, a malicious grin greeting me as I complied…

 

BANG

 

 

The metal beside me buckled into a hole.

 

Lines of crimson seeped over my vision.

 

Medic collapsed ontop of me, sliding down to the floor and he groaned and searched frantically out of my sight.  
My lungs pulsed a cry of anguish as the lights came on, revealing the hidden bodies of some other team members that had been festering in the dark. Their organs were splayed along the floor, ribboned over tables and attached to machinery, keeping them awake during the inhuman procedures…

Two robust hands gripped my waist and replaced my wailed despair with shock.   
As my tightened eyes came to focus on my other surroundings I met my sight with the strong face of Heavy, ripping the belts that held me. I was too panicked to feel relief… instead my arms wrapped around him as he picked me up and turned to Sniper who’s gun pointed unwavering at Medic’s head. “Don’t bother gettin' up…” He muttered from the other end of the barrel...  
“How could I do anyzhing else?” Medic joked sourly, gripping the wound on his shoulder.  
"A bloody criminal is what you are.”   
“-Aren’t we all?” He chuckled, recoiling as Sniper pushed the gun against his face. “...We kill ozhers for a living. Zhis is no different.”  
Sniper growled as Medic laughed again, obvious in his lost touch of reality. “We’re your bloody team. There is a difference...”   
Before Medic could answer, Sniper flipped his gun and struck hard on the doctor's head, rendering him unconscious…  
“What are you going to do with him…” I asked hesitantly, still in a state of shock.  
“We’ll figure that out later…” A rough sigh came from him as he pulled the rifle over his shoulder and kept his eyes on the medic. “For now we’ve got to get him secure.”  
His cigarette burned the table as he crushed it down, forming a small pile of ash in the moments after he crouched and began to search the doctors pockets for anything he could use against him when Medic awoke.   
His movements stopped briefly as Heavy spoke… I figured he was too angry to be concerned about my well being, and bringing it up made him feel bad for it... but I wasn’t going to say it myself... “Are you hurt, товарищ?” His voice reverberated through his chest as I clung to him.   
“No… I don’t think so…” my voice questioned everything, what just happened, what could of happened… I was in a strange state between complete panic and numbness… perhaps a combination of both, fighting to cancel each other out…  
Then I remembered the pain from earlier, the pinch against my leg whilst I had ran, with haste, to escape the doctor’s intentions.   
My eyes trailed down to see an empty needle still stuck in my skin…   
Presumably it had been full of the sedative that caused me to black out while I was sprinting away…   
The now prominent pain pulsing within my skull began to make sense…  
Heavy looked at my expression warily, waiting for me to voice out what was hurting me but it didn’t matter now…   
“It’s fine…” I muttered, “I’m… fine…” 

Fine…

Fine until he woke up…  
Writhing against the restraints we put him in…

Heavy and I had gone to find the respawner as Sniper stayed behind and attached him to the table i’d been on.   
It had taken a while for the team to come through… As Medic had strung out their lives for as long as possible, we didn’t know if they’d completely died, but it was better to wait for them to come back healthy than to tamper with whatever immoral experiment he had them in…  
Engie came first, surprised to see us waiting for him as his consciousness caught up. He had been glad to see me and bore a respected and owing look on his face for the fact that i’d tried to help. I brushed it off saying there was no question to my actions and figured anyone would do the same, even if I knew that wasn’t always true. Nevertheless, he accepted it anyway.   
The others came after that, each disturbed and vengeful towards the medic and his painful procedures. I couldn’t help but agree with them and as we all came back to Sniper he ushered us into the greater hall, affixed with Medic bound in the centre. His medi-gun was pointed to his figure, healing constantly… We each knew he couldn’t die from the pain alone, but we knew he could still feel it’s intensity as we waited for him to come round, doing unto him what he did, and would have done, to all of us...

 

 

Demo came and sat with me after his session, betrayed but smiling as he looked to me and gave me a drink from the crate he’d found. I smiled back hopefully, nodding as I took the bottle and raised it in a cheer against his, losing the sound in the bullets and deceived war cries behind us. 

Everything was back to the way we wanted it to be.

 

With a twist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to correct my grammar/spelling as I don't speak German, nor Russian for that matter.
> 
> Mien Favorit: My Favourite  
> Die Inbegriff aus Schönheit: The Epitome of Beauty  
> Beanworten Mir: Answer Me  
> Perfektion: Perfection  
> Fehlerlos: Flawless
> 
> товарищ(tovarishch): Friend


End file.
